A South Devon parish is set to follow a series of Cornish communities in cracking down on second homes.

Residents vote on Thursday in a referendum on the Bantham, Buckland and Thurlestone neighbourhood plan, which will help to shape the future of housing, leisure amenities and business activities.

The debate has been dominated by a row over the future of Bantham. The idyllic beach village with 40 homes, a pub and a shop and surrounding 728-acre estate was bought for £11.5 million in 2014 by the Old Etonian Nicholas Johnston.

When the neighbourhood plan process was launched, Mr Johnston submitted proposals including an underground car park, new open market housing, a boat building/restoration yard and eight family rented homes.

The village of Bantham in Devon, which is owned by Nicholas Johnston.

Opponents fear he is planning to create a Bantham version of the exclusive Soho House resorts, similar to one on the Great Tew estate in Oxfordshire, which he also owns.

Mr Johnston insists that he came up with the proposals simply as ideas, in response to a request from South Hams District Council.

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He said: “I don’t have any great love of second homes at all. What we need in these communities is a mixture of homes so that all people stand to benefit if there is to be any new development. I think that a community needs to appeal to a whole variety of people.

“We are fully supportive of the needs of people in our community, their need for housing, of challenges for first time buyers and the best situation for everyone in the community of Bantham.”

So far, he has not submitted planning applications, but has allowed two “Gastrobuses” to operate in the beach car park, and has significantly increased the scale of an existing game shoot.

Save Bantham, a group set up to oppose any developments, has more than 12,000 followers. Only 694 people are entitled to vote in the referendum.

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A group spokesman said people from all over the county, the region and even from overseas came to enjoy Bantham, voted one of Europe’s top ten beaches in 2015. “We have so few unspoilt parts of the coastline and when it’s built on, it is gone for ever,” he said.

The group worries that if Mr Johnson should open a members-only resort in Bantham he could close off public access to a beach that has been a playground for generations of Devon people.

The Save Bantham spokesman said: “He is conducting a large number of pheasant shoots. Buggies run all over the estate. Boats carry the shooting parties.”

“His whole proposition appears to be, ‘I’ve bought this land as your playground.”

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John Rendle from the Save Bantham group said: “So many beaches now have commercial things happening on them so it’s wonderful to have a beach that is unspoilt. “The estate has been pretty much kept as it was for all those years and seemed to survive perfectly well.”

Mr Rendle, who lives in Plymouth, said his family had a caravan near Bantham. and the beach there was the first he ever went on, as a toddler. When he grew up, he learned to surf at Bantham. “I’ve spent a lot of my life there.”

He claimed they were privately supported by people who live and work on the estate, but who wanted to “stay below the radar”.

WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

If adopted, the neighbourhood plan will impose a “principal residence” requirement on all new open market housing, except where a new house simply replaces an old one on the same footprint.

Any conversion of farm and rural buildings will be subject to the same rules.

Homes are a big issue in the parish. The 2011 census found that 39% of dwellings were second homes and/or holiday lets, compared to an average of 15% across the whole of the South Hams.

The population is heavily skewed, with 43% aged 65 or older and 36% retired.

In Zoopla’s 2017 Rich List of Property Values, two of the highest value streets in Devon were in Thurlestone.

The whole parish is within the South Devon AONB and most falls within the Heritage Coast and the undeveloped coast.

The neighbourhood plan introduces new settlement boundaries for Bantham and Buckland (Thurlestone already has such a boundary).

and restricts development of open market housing in all three villages to infill.

The plan is only the third neighbourhood plan to go to referendum in the South Hams, alongside Newton and Noss, which has its referendum the same day.

The Ivybridge neighbourhood plan was adopted on December 7, 2017, and the Ugborough neighbourhood development plan was made on May 17 this year.

Genny Madeira from Save Bantham said locals were afraid they could be excluded from the beach. “It’s an affluence thing. Local people would not be able to afford the price of a private members’ club. “We have all enjoyed this beach for generations and would like to continue doing so. The plan put forward [by the estate] would create a divide.”

Genny Madeira from Save Bantham at Bantham Beach

David and Donna Wenyon have been regular holiday visitors from their home in Worcester.

Mrs Wenyon said: “The appeal for me is because it’s so undeveloped. It still has its original charm. It would be a shame if big buildings were to go up. But I also can see that youngsters need jobs and need to get into the housing market. They need to be given a chance. It’s all about balance.”

Mr Wenyon said: “I prefer it the way it is now.”

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Robert Heathman, who moved from London to take over the Pickwick Inn at nearby St Anns Chapel, and lives in Bantham, said: “More housing would be a good thing.” I’m from London, so I’m used to building work and car parks.

“There is building going on in St Ann’s Chapel which people were all opposed to. But now it’s happening, everyone has gone quiet.” But he said the road to Bantham was terrible. “I find it strange that a place that makes all its money from tourism makes it so difficult for caravans and camper vans to get anywhere. They could just take three or four feet away from every farmer and make the roads wider.”

Bantham Beach in South Devon

Steve Gudger, who works on the Gastrobus, said: “Most of people living in Bantham aren’t from around here and really haven’t got much of an idea.”

One man, who has owned a holiday home in Bantham for 25 years but wished to be anonymous, said: “Since the estate changed hands they have done nothing that I would choose to criticise.”

Mr Johnston said: “We are proud custodians of an unique and priceless environment, precious to all people who visit it and are determined to keep it as a sustainable estate.”